Catriona Strang : on What If I Sang “Flower of Scotland”?

 

 

 

 

“Hoots mon! Whar’s me heid?” What If I Sang “Flower of Scotland”? is in some ways a personal project, interweaving language from three strands of research: Scottish history, rugby writing, and Scottish women’s material culture. I am a first-generation settler of almost entirely Scottish descent, and my very Scottish upbringing was steeped in rugby and its values; my father played and refereed the game and one of my brothers played at the international level – and recently a niece has taken it up.

Rugby evolved during the nineteenth century and was shaped by industrial demands – under pressure from factory owners, it was reduced from a multi-day collective communal event to a ninety-minute spectacle between skilled players for audience consumption.  Later employed during war to “improve moral” and foster “leadership” and “team spirit,” the game offers a rich vein for a study of violence, its containment and commodification, and its deployment by forces of empire.

I am a devotee of the fibre arts and a descendant of women who might well have used the cooking and fibre-arts objects I find preserved in Scottish archives, and my text prioritizes women typically occluded in the historical record. So just as my use of rugby language gestures to my paternal heritage, my weaving together of three disparate strands of research mirrors and honours the techniques practiced by my foremothers.

The text’s structure will echo that of a rugby match – divided into two halves, with pre- and post-game commentary as well as “shouted” interjections from the “crowd,” drawn from my research into Scottish resistance and rebellion.

 

 

 

 

Catriona Strang is a first-generation settler of primarily Scottish heritage who lives on stolen xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and səlilwətaɬ Lands. Her most recent publication is Unfuckable Lardass (Talonbooks, 2022). She is the author of five other books of poetry, several written in collaboration with the late Nancy Shaw, whose selected works, The Gorge, she edited (Talonbooks, 2017).

Catriona Strang : from What If I Sang “Flower of Scotland”

 

 

February 24, Scotland 30–21 England

One further alone
I walk tip-tackled
and expect crevices owe
the ocean, indeed narrow 
stonecrop (familiar) slowly greys 
hours having life to start
racing ocean-scrubbed and 
scoured, what if 
I sang, what if their very beards
fought and died, fought and died
what bloody try is this
or should I sleep in
midfield confusion

 

 

March 9, Italy 31–29 Scotland

How often must we slog through
this mud, a challenge all sides
pipe in against the grain (even
the offensive bags) – my appetite
is to run it deep, an edged
iznay-waznay extra zip
around the lineout fringe (seaweed
and sand for soil) might
jack open this gap, where
the knitters voice, right up
into the breath of the
defenders. Slot it 
through the poles, here’s
another missed chance
Scotland will lament, a brutal
act publicly performed: it’s 
a family affair. Note there’s
mounting anecdotal concern and
lessening interest in 
heavy contact or broken 
teeth (a worrying), bar any
instrument of war, ban all
appropriate bounty, I bet
resistance will not abate

 

 

March 16, Ireland 17– 13 Scotland
 

Let’s treat a field 
to the bloody collision of 
unnecessary and static 
defence fizzing at 
a frenetic place. So now 
Scotland gets their cleats
going, the imprecise
position a form of 
exacting contract. This 
is a tight old game, just when 
a bruising braes or banks 
in trust’s promise. The rain 
is muddling steady 
now. Rinse and 
repeat, someone has to 
play the price, there’s 
a muddy mount
touching up the line 
of treaty, a rumble as this
gloaming settles

 

 

Interlude

The disinherited (wheesht noo)
pile spear high: take the fields
and burn up the money – what
shimmering, transitory information
coheres here? – blue silk on white
cotton, turf, mud, and cashmere (an intensely 
grim existence) and so we pin our hopes
(oh testosterone!) on havoc
in the Highlands and a boot
and chase, again. Green-grey wool
loops vivid for warmth in cheap
copy mimicking thinly. The baby’s
too close
to the fire. Neck
and hem cuffed with
subjugation (embroidered
after withstanding) I’m battering here
for the chaos, me
and the pirates
in Byzantine Fair
Isle. There are times
when it’s simpler
not to unpick.

 

 

 

 

(Pillock!)

 

 

 

A founding member of the Institute for Domestic Research, Catriona Strang is the author of Low Fancy, Corked, Reveries of a Solitary Biker, and Unfuckable Lardass and co-author of Busted, Cold Trip, and Light Sweet Crude with the late Nancy Shaw, whose selected works, The Gorge, she edited.

She frequently collaborates with composer Jacqueline Leggatt, and lives with her two grown kids on stolen xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and səl̓ilwətaɁɬ Lands. She is recovering from decades of caring labour.